Rise of the Runelords Recap # 58 [RPG]

[31 Kuthona 4707 continued]

Having read the mammoth-hide message disclosing a planned attack on Sandpoint on the first new moon of the new year (the 17^th of Abadius), the adventurers start to discuss the fastest way to get to Sandpoint.  Salma says he can simply teleport everyone there.  Saan explains she would like to stay at the Kreeg Clanhold for now in order to converse with the spirits that will surely appear in the evening.  So, rather suddenly, Salma grabs the hands of Ava, Kang, and Jinkatsyu and magically transports them hundreds of miles in an instant!

A simple, relatively peaceful town with all the color and common oddities one expects from a tightly-knit community, Sandpoint sits at a point on the Lost Coast halfway between Magnimar and Windsong Abbey. Wood buildings and cluttered docks line the town’s natural harbor, while farms and the manors of wealthy citizens dot the surrounding countryside. During the day, fishing, farming, lumbering, glassmaking, and shipbuilding occupy most of the townsfolk, who commonly retire to their homes by way of Sandpoint’s many taverns. A playhouse and would-be museum make unusual attractions in such a small community, but Sandpoint’s true landmark is the Old Light, a lighthouse of ancient origins that lies in ruins.

Kendra Deverin became mayor in a landslide win over 

Titus Scarnetti (something the latter has never forgiven).

Through Salma’s spell, the foursome appear outside of Cracktooth’s Tavern near the center of the town.  This early in the morning, the establishment is closed.  Kang announces that the first order of business is to alert the mayor about the impending attack, and fortunately the Town Hall is just down the street.  Inside, the newcomers see labourers raising a banner proclaiming the “Goblin Day Festival!”  A clerk recognizes Kang and treats him as a hero, saying that everyone knows he was one of the heroes who stopped the “scarecrow” invasion several weeks ago.  The clerk happily leads the group to the second floor office of Mayor Kendra Deverin, a woman with short brown hair in her early thirties.  Kang again enjoys the unusual (for him) phenomenon of being greeted warmly despite his “Hell-touched” appearance.  Deverin is introduced to the other adventurers, and told the story about the discovery of a planned attack on Sandpoint.  She’s interested but not alarmed at the news, saying that she’s can’t imagine why an army of ogres or giants from central Varisia would come all the way to the Lost Coast to attack a small town like Sandpoint.  She suggests the adventurers may have fallen for a ruse, but says she’ll keep an open mind if they come up with any more proof.  In the meantime, she explains, the town is celebrating the last day of the year and the defeat of the temporarily-united goblin tribes at Thistletop by holding a festival in the town square.  She asks the adventurers to keep word of another potential attack on Sandpoint quiet so as not to alarm the festival-goers.

Intrigued by something Deverin mentioned about a mysterious stranger washing up on the beach some weeks ago, the adventurers’ curiosity gets the better of them.  They walk to the town square, now starting to fill up with stalls and wagons, and toward the Cathedral, where the stranger is supposed to be staying.  The building is the largest in Sandpoint, a brand-new building of stone and glass that contains interior shrines to six different faiths as well as ancient standing stones in the center.  On the front steps of the building, the adventurers see one of the local acolytes, the muddle-headed Sister Guilia, speaking with a tall, black-haired elf woman.  After introducing themselves, the adventurers quickly learn that the elf, Nerissa, is the stranger that Mayor Deverin spoke about.  Nerissa explains that she has no memory of who she is, what happened to her, or why her own journal is written in a code she can’t decipher!

A vendor approaches to sell the group berries but suddenly whispers to Nerissa “You may forget, but you will never escape!” and produces a dagger!  Before anyone can react, the “vendor” stabs her and tries to make a run for it.  The cut, although shallow, seems to sap Nerissa’s strength: the dagger was poisoned!  As the elf staggers inside, the others try to apprehend the would-be murderer who has fled out of sight.  Fortunately, Salma spots him trying to squeeze through a narrow alley.  Kang rushes to one end and Jinkatsyu rushes to the other, seemingly blocking escape.  “If I fall, others will come in my wake—the traitor will die!” the assassin shouts, and then climbs a wall of the alleyway and onto a rooftop!  Salma hurls a massive fireball that rocks the town with its echo, but the assassin leaps for cover behind a stone chimney and escapes the blast.  Kang unfurls his dragonfly wings and hovers adjacent to the rooftop to hurl bombs as Salma encircles the fugitive with a translucent ring of magical energy.  Jinkatsyu reaches the rooftop and darts forth to stab the assassin, not realizing the ring is a wall of blindness spell!  But even with the kitsune’s sudden loss of vision in mid-stroke, his rapier stabs the assassin in the heart!  Despite efforts to save the man’s life for interrogation, he bleeds to death seconds later.

Sister Guilia is a priestess of Gozreh,
a revered and feared god of nature.

Salma is able to dismiss her spell and end Jinkatsyu’s blindness.  It’s not long before the Town Watch arrives.  Sheriff Hemlock isn’t pleased to see Kang back in Sandpoint along with a band of adventurers, and notes that they’ve barely arrived before a body has turned up!  As Hemlock goes into the Cathedral to question the target of the attack, Kang speaks to part-time Watch member Jodar Provolost and manages to persuade the man that it’d be in his own best interest if Kang were to investigate any strange vials found on the body.  Indeed, several contain poison.  Back in the Cathedral, a frightened and weakened Nerissa has been taken to one of the sick beds and looked after by Sister Giulia and Ava.  Nerissa explains to Sheriff Hemlock that she knows nothing of the attacker or why she was the target.  Sheriff Hemlock is not pleased to have a mysterious corpse on his hands along with the mysterious Nerissa, and departs with a warning to the adventurers to stay out of trouble.  When Kang and the others go to check on Nerissa, Kang gets a hunch that perhaps Sister Giulia knows more about Nerissa than she’s letting on, but he can’t figure out a way to get the airy acolyte to reveal any secrets.

Leaving Nerissa to rest, the adventurers head to a local inn called the Rusty Dragon.  Its namesake is clearly visible in the form of a skeletal rusty metal dragon that serves as both advertisement and lightning rod.  Inside, the tavern is busy as local farmers and merchants have come for the Goblin Day Festival and stopped in for a light repast before it starts.  Ava talks to an aged but spry halfling maid named Bethana Corwin and gets a large room (one of the few left) for everyone to stay in, while Kang talks to the tavern’s owner, a beautiful young woman with a white streak in her hair named Ameiko Kaijitsu.  Ameiko recognizes Kang and tells him that Cyrdak Drokkus has been doing a wonderful impersonation of him in his one-man show about “local heroes.” 

Cyrdak Drokkus has turned the Sandpoint Theatre into
the best center of performing arts north of Magnimar.

In their two-bedroom suite on the second floor, the adventurers discuss what to do next.  Salma is keen to teleport back to Hook Mountain to obtain the mammoth hide message to help prove the threat of invasion is real, but Kang says the group is still injured and weary and it would be too risky.  Salma reluctantly agrees and begins committing the interior of the room to memory.  While Ava prays to her deity in shame for not being able to help stop the poison that weakened Nerissa, Jinkatsyu and Kang decide to check out the festival  in the town square.  They find a wide variety of games, trinket stalls, and homemade food and craft vendors.  The only thing that catches Kang’s eyes are some dolls of straw and rag meant to represent the “Heroes of Sandpoint.”  He buys two of them before hearing word that Cyrdak Drokkus’ show is about to start at an outdoor stage built near the popular Sandpoint Theatre.  Cyrdak’s show incorporates a heavily-fictionalized retelling of recent events and proves enormously popular.  Afterwards, Kang gains a private audience with the multi-talented performer and asks who in town would traffic in poison of the type discovered on the body of the assassin.  The tiefling emerges with two leads: Jubrayl Vhiski and “Pillbug” Podiker.

The adventurers’ first morning in Sandpoint has proven an eventful one, as already they’ve met a potential ally and done battle in the streets.  But as the townsfolk are busy with the festival and the local constabulary seems suspicious of them, will they succeed in preparing the town for an invasion force that may already be on its way?

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Director's Commentary (23/12/18)

This session kicked off Chapter Four, and was also our first session back after several weeks off for the holidays.  Because two of the players had never seen Sandpoint (having started at the beginning of Chapter Three), I made a real effort to reintroduce the town and some of its major NPCs in this session (and in the recap).  Sessions in town always lend themselves to much more improv, and I'm never quite sure what'll happen.

The player who had introduced Saan in the last session of the previous chapter decided over the break that she didn't like the character, and so this session sees the introduction of Nerissa.  Nerissa was a ninja with a mysterious past that I tried to draw on for some action and intrigue in this session.

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